and Nicolas Sarkozy are expected to announce plans to develop a next-generation of unmanned stealth aircraft at a bilateral summit in Paris today.
Headed by France’s Dassault Aviation and British defence contractor BAE Systems, the project follows a cooperation accord signed by the two countries in 2010.
The first prototype of the new aircraft could appear by 2020, according to defence sources.
BAE Systems said it expected that tomorrow’s summit, originally scheduled for December last year, would pave the way for a UAS design and development programme, and an unmanned combat air system demonstrator programme.
In 2010, the company said it was in talks with Dassault Aviation about working together on developing UAS, which are used for both intelligence gathering and attack missions.
The two companies are in competition to sell conventional fighter jets. Only last week, France’s Dassault won a bid to sell 126 fighter jets to India, dashing BAE hopes of securing the contract.
This new Anglo-French partnership comes at a difficult time for the defence industry. On Thursday, BAE – Europe’s biggest defence contractor and Britain’s biggest manufacturer employer – warned that budget cuts by the UK and US governments had led to a 14 per cent fall in its revenues last year, resulting in a £19.2bn fall in sales.
The new UAS will be built according to performance targets set by EU countries, but qualities to be considered will include the aircraft’s visibility, how long it can stay in the air, and whether they will be used for surveillance or attack.
Collaborations of this sort – motivated by the need to cut costs – are nothing new for the UK. But usually such partnerships have been Europe-wide, said Trevor Taylor, professorial fellow in defence industries at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
“If you can share the cost that’s obviously helpful,” he told Channel 4 News. “The UK for a long time has done a lot of acquisition in collaboration with other countries. But there have been criticisms about things taking longer than they should. Some people have felt that we ought to focus our cooperation with a lead partner at least.”
As an ally with industrial capabilities, France is in some ways, a natural partner.
Source: Channel 4 News